 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
State v. Heredia10/4/2001
County. Accordingly, the trial court erred by granting the motion to suppress based on the officer's lack of jurisdiction to stop and arrest Heredia.
2. The trial court further ruled that the results of Heredia's blood and urine tests must be suppressed because the officer reread the implied consent warning to Heredia, changed his request from breath to blood an urine, and never obtained a test of Heredia's breath. It reasoned that
the Defendant's right to an additional test never attached because the officer's designated breath test was neither withdrawn nor performed. Therefore, the Defendant's right to an independent test was compromised and the result of the State's test must be excluded.
We disagree with the trial court's analysis. The defendant's right to an independent test was not compromised simply because the officer reread the implied consent warning five minutes after its first reading and changed the test designation from breath to urine and blood based on newly discovered evidence. As a result, the trial court erred when it granted the motion to suppress for this reason.
3. The trial court also granted the motion to suppress because the State failed to prove (1) that the impoundment and inventory search of Heredia's sport utility was necessary and (2) a routine Cobb County police department policy for opening closed containers during inventory searches. However, it failed to address whether the search of the car and the closed containers was valid as a search incident to Heredia's arrest. Our law regarding searches incident to arrest and inventory searches provides two alternative means for finding that a particular search was reasonable. See Scoggins v. State, 248 Ga. App. 1 (545 SE2d 19) (2001); Vega v. State, 236 Ga. App. 319, 320-21, n.1 (512 SE2d 65) (1999). Police officers may search the passenger compartment of a car, as well as closed containers inside it, after the arrest of the car's occupant. Id. at 320. Because the search of the car and the closed containers within it was valid incident to Heredia's arrest, we need not address the impoundment issue. Id. See also State v. Watkins, 182 Ga. App. 431 (356 SE2d 82) (1987). Therefore, the trial court erred by concluding that the search of the car and the closed containers in the passenger compartment was illegal. Watkins, supra.
4. The trial court's remaining reason for granting the motion to suppress was that " ince the testimony was that the alleged marijuana in the container and that found loose in the console area of the car were placed in a single evidence bag, all of it must be suppressed." The trial court cited no legal authority for this conclusion and Heredia also fails to cite any authority to support the trial court's reasoning. Furthermore, although the trial court apparently believed the loose marijuana was commingled with the marijuana in the pill bottle, the record does not support this conclusion. The only testimony on this issue was that one of the officers placed "all that," referring to the loose marijuana, in a plastic bag. Thus, this remaining rationale cannot be used to support the trial court's grant of the motion to suppress.
Judgment reversed. Smith, P. J., and Phipps, J., concur.
Decided October 4, 2001.
Motion to suppress. Cobb State Court. Before Judge Clayton.
|